Julaaay from Ladakh

Sincere apologies for the lateness of these first posts from overseas!

We've been in India for a month now. And we spent most of that time in Ladakh. Ladakh is famous for many things, like yaks, butter tea, gompas and lamas (of the religious variety), barley flavoured things, and crappy internet connections.

It is also the land of insane roads and passes - like this one, Kardung La, the highest motorable plass in the world! Yes we motored over it. On the other side of Kardung La is the beautiful Nubra Valley, but that deserves a post of its own a little later.

At 3600 metres, Leh - the capital of Ladakh - is breathtaking in more than one way. It took us about 5 days to recover from the sudden jump in altitude (we flew from Delhi to Leh in one go). We had headaches and sniffles and lethargy and would get puffed after about a two block walk uphill. Particularly distressing when 80 year old Ladakhi women race past you carrying loads of wheat or barley bigger than them.

We spent our time in Ladakh eating (thukpa, thantuk, tea, bread, and so, so many apricots), walking (trekking between villages), driving (cars, buses, motorbikes - some less succesfully than others) and hanging out at our second home, Norlakh restaurant. We ate here so many times they offered floor space for our sleeping bags. Ah, makes me hungry.

We are now in Manali, in beautiful Himachal Pradesh So lovely and green after dry deserty Ladakh (didn't we just leave a desert?). But still, the blog needs catching up on the Ladakh chapter so stay tuned for a few more.